


Tea Rituals

by misura



Category: Alice (TV 2009)
Genre: Gen, Manipulation, Morally Ambiguous Character, Non-Chronological, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-09-07 12:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8800495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Porcelain cups and a cloud of murder.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theteacuptempest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theteacuptempest/gifts).



> italics indicate the beginning of a flashback
> 
> (as there's more flashback than present, it seemed more pleasing to the eye to not put the whole section in italics)

Owl had looked worried. Worried-er.

For some reason, that was the image that had stayed stuck in his memory, to the point where he'd briefly (very briefly) considered sipping just a drop of brand-new Serenity to get rid of it.

He hadn't, of course; poor business practice all around for a tea shop owner to go around sampling his own wares. The Hearts would like it, true, but if word got out (as it would), his standing in the Resistance would take a serious blow, and there were only so many food packages a man could and/or wanted to spend buying goodwill.

So. No Serenity for poor Hatter, at least none that came out of a bottle.

He thought he might have felt the real thing once, but memory was a tricky business, and anyway, just because you _remembered_ feeling something, that didn't mean you could feel it again just like that, at the drop of the proverbial hat.

 

 _"You take him out, you can name your price,"_ Dodo said, all good-natured generosity and optimism, slapping Hatter's shoulder like they were friends or something, like he hadn't called Hatter 'a blood-sucking parasite' and worse, last time they met.

"Not an assassin, thanks very much," Hatter replied, raising his hands, and Dodo's smile slipped a little, even though he still stuck close - too close for Hatter to take a proper good swing at him, which he probably wouldn't have.

"Scruples?" Dodo's smile suggested it was a joke, that it could not be anything other than a joke.

People like Hatter, that smile suggested, did not have scruples, or morals, or any sort of decency.

Owl looked worried. Worried-er.

"Plenty," Hatter replied, even though there were days when he wondered if the answer wasn't 'none' or 'very few'. Working a tea shop had that effect on a man.

Dodo sighed. "Oh, very well. Just keep him distracted for a few hours, then. Surely that will not offend your precious imaginary scruples. Five would do quite nicely, I think, although six would be better."

"Six hours," Hatter repeated. "Well, sure. I'll get on that right away, shall I? Are you serious? The man's a homicidal maniac, and that's probably a bit of an understatement. What am I supposed to distract him with, then? A puppet show?"

Owl perked up a little. She liked to hang out in the Children's Literature section, did Owl. In a different Wonderland, she might have been a puppeteer, or a school teacher. The good kind.

"Mine is to command, yours is to do what we pay you ever so generously to do," Dodo said, which was a suit-black lie if Hatter had ever heard one. "I'm sure you'll be able to think of something. I have every trust in your ingenuity, to say nothing of your greed."

"Half up front," Hatter said. "Half after. Delivered in a timely manner, mind."

Dodo beamed at him, cardboard-thin good humor restored once more. "Good old Hatter."

 

The thing about Mad March was: he could not be reasoned with.

Hatter knew how to make friends, how to grease the right palms, pass around a bit of Goodwill and Amicability and the like. He prided himself on his people skills, in no small part because to pride himself on anything else might have very well cost him his head.

People were so very sensitive nowadays. No sense of humor, either.

Well, not what Hatter'd call a proper sense of humor, anyway.

 

_"You the owner of this dump?"_

Hatter turned, perfectly composed. He'd poured himself a fresh cup of tea, all nice and hot, just in case.

There were no stains on Mad March's clothes. His shoes were immaculate. There'd been screams, and rather a lot of them, only moments ago, but things seemed to have settled down again - or possibly everyone capable of screaming had been freed from that bothersome capability.

Hatter imagined dying while a man with a dripping wet face stared down at him, scowling - or no, he'd probably be smiling. Licking a few drops of tea away, possibly; it was the good stuff, the kind most people didn't bother with anymore, nowadays, meaning Hatter might pick it up for a song and a dance.

"I run this tea shop, yes," he said, and then, because this was not shaping up to be a good day, "Not on the grass, please."

Mad March stepped on the grass. "Only wanted you to know, I just killed a guy. You might want to do a bit of cleaning up and the like. Things got messy."

No apologies. Hatter remembered the smell of Nostalgia, and a time when people'd put value in having nice manners, in saying 'thank you', and 'please' and 'no, no, after you, I insist'.

"Messy," he repeated, putting down the cup on the saucer. "How messy?"

"How messy?" Mad March chuckled. "What do I look like to you, a cleaner? What are you on, essence of a bleeding idiot?"

"Don't think it would sell, really." Hatter put down the saucer on the table.

"You got balls, I'll give you that," Mad March said. "Most people, they see me, they piss their pants."

Hatter wrinkled his nose. He felt very alive, in the sense that part of him was quite convinced that he would shortly be very dead - but not just yet. That was the trick, really. Turned out, you could put up with a whole lot of things, long as you kept telling yourself it was only for a little bit.

And then you put up with it a little bit more, and on and on, until one day you realized that really, that hadn't been so bad now, had it? Perfectly survivable.

"Would you like a cup of tea, then?" he asked. "Must be thirsty work, murdering people. Or so I've heard."

Mad March stepped off the grass. "Sure. I guess I could drink. The good stuff, mind."

 

No screams this time, which was good, Hatter supposed, for a given value of 'good'.

"Marchie. Nice of you to drop by."

"I was in the neighborhood," Mad March said. There was a speck of something wet on one of his shoes, Hatter noticed. Might have been rain, or simply some other perfectly harmless and innocent liquid.

Not all that was red was blood. It just seemed like that, what with the Hearts running things.

Mad March stepped on the grass. "Know who else calls me that? The fat cow. I hate it."

Hatter shut his teeth on pointing out that that was probably why she did it. "Ah. Fair enough. Maddy it is, then?"

"You're a funny guy, Hatter." Mad March sat down and poured himself a cup of tea. The good stuff, mind - not that anyone else in Wonderland except Hatter considered it that.

Well, Hatter and a homicidal maniac who enjoyed killing people.

"I try," Hatter said modestly. (Yet another emotion doomed to stay out of fashion forever and a day.)

"Yeah. They ever send me to kill you, I might actually feel bad about it." Mad March chuckled. "For a few seconds, at least. But hey, I promise I'll make it slow. Messy. Painful."

"As opposed to your usual modus operandi?" Hatter asked, and Mad March chuckled again.

"What can I say? I'm a simple guy. They tell me to ice someone, I ice 'em. Simple."

"Speaking of which," Hatter said.

Mad March sipped his tea and said nothing, letting the sentence dangle. 

Fair enough, Hatter supposed. Curiosity came bottled nowadays, and he rather doubted Mad March indulged in something as frivolous as that, being a self-proclaimed simple guy who enjoyed his job.

"Seems you might be getting a bit of competition," he said.

Mad March scoffed. "You trying to play me?"

 _Yes._ Madness, in many ways. "I know some people," Hatter said. "Friends, of a sort."

"I don't do favors for friends of friends," said Mad March. "And even if I did, you'd have to make it worth my while. Friendship only gets you so far. I lose my head over this, I want to know I got paid up front."

"Of course," said Hatter. "Only reasonable, isn't it?"

Mad March sipped some more tea. He'd taken a genuine liking to the stuff, it seemed like, which had surprised Hatter. He'd quite enjoyed feeling superior to everyone else who did not appreciate a proper, old-fashioned cup of tea.

"You got a name?"

Hatter told him the name.


End file.
